Always
by crazymac
Summary: "Keep him happy. Always." Roxana and Hephaistion have a heart to heart, and come to understand each other better. One-shot. Alexander/Hephaistion


**Always**

It was hard enough for General Hephaistion to rise and leave his warm bed on any morning, but it becomes especially difficult on those days when he awakes with another body entwined around his own. Those glorious mornings when Alexander's face is the first thing he sees, so calm and child-like, innocent in his slumber. When their bodies were so close he could not tell where his ended and his love's began. With those warm, strong arms wrapped around him it was nearly impossible for Hephaistion to force himself to rise.

Some days he wouldn't make himself leave. He'd pass his morning snuggled in close to Alexander, watching his eyelids twitch as he dreamt; admiring the long, golden fringe of eyelashes that brushed the top of his strong cheekbones. He would gently stroke his King's fine hair, and place feather light kisses on his handsome face.

Patiently, Hephaistion would wait, sometimes all morning, for his love to awake. He would hold his breath as those warm brown eyes made their first appearance of the day. They would lock with his own blue orbs and then a lazy smile would stretch across Alexander's face.

"Good morning, my most beautiful Phai." He would always say as he buried his face into Hephaistion's neck.

Hephaistion silently wished that this morning could be just like that. But he had duties to attend to, and could not spend all morning in bed. Of course Alexander would not mind him neglecting his duties for such a reason, but the general did not wish to deal with the insinuating comments from his comrades. And he would not allow himself to receive special treatment from the king.

So, after about ten minutes of building up enough self-motivation, he disentangled himself from his beloved's grasp, and swung his feet off the bed. The chill of the morning bit at his toes. It took all his self-control not to retreat back into the warmth of his lover's embrace.

Hephaistion stood and watched silently as Alexander grew restless in his sleep. The King's brow furrowed as he reached out across the bed, searching for beloved, missing his warmth. Alexander finally contented himself to wrapping his arms around the pillow on which Hephaistion had rested his head. The general grinned as he watched his Xander breath in his scent that still lingered there. As he did so, Alexander's handsome features relaxed some.

After dressing, Hephaistion slipped out of the King's rooms and out into the corridors of the palace. He reluctantly shut the heavy door. It had finality to it, no sliding back into bed with his love.

He turned to make his way to the dining hall, in order to take his morning meal, but he froze as the small sound of a gasp came from behind him. Spinning around he found himself staring directly at the Queen and one of her women.

Hephaistion could feel the heat of Roxana's anger radiating from her body. Every one of her muscles tightened.

He could understand the queen's anger. Here he was, leaving her husbands bedroom early in the morning, hair most likely quite disheveled, clothes wrinkled. Is there any woman on earth that would not react in the same way? It certainly didn't help that the entire palace knew that the King spent his nights far more often with his general than with his queen. It wasn't hard to imagine the shame she must have felt when people around her whispered.

Hephaistion could do nothing but freeze under the fiery gaze. He stood there like an idiot for a good twenty seconds, which felt like a lifetime.

When he finally made his body move, he bowed his head slightly, "My Queen." He said.

Even though Hephaistion thought it impossible, Roxana's scowl deepened.

"Do not dare mock me with your fake civilities. Do not pretend to respect me, lie to my face" She sneered viciously. "It is bad enough, what you do behind my back."

Hephaistion was somewhat taken aback. He had not expected her to turn his polite recognition into an insult.

"I assure you, I meant no offense." He said calmly, but earnestly.

Roxana's mouth dropped open a few centimeters. A disbelieving look came over her features. She motioned for her serving woman to leave them.

The general watched wearily as the tiny figure retreated down the corridor. When her soft footsteps had faded completely, the Queen spoke.

"No offense? No offense?" She snarled. "You are leaving my husbands room early in the morning and you believe you do not offend me? Are you stupid? How could you not offend me? Every night you lay down next to him, every time you touch him, allow him to touch you; you offend me!"

Her soft, feminine body quaked; from anger or sadness, Hephaistion could not tell. But her eyes shone with moisture as she stood before the man that her husband loved.

Hephaistion, a grown man, a fierce warrior, felt like a child being chastised. But her words fell heavy on his heart.

He had never completely considered what life is like for the queen. To be married to a man that had no interest in you. She was correct in believing that Hephaistion took her place in Alexander's bed. But she did not understand, couldn't comprehend that he was so much more than a notch in the King's bedpost. She did not understand what they were to each other, what they had been to each other for their entire lives. They were one soul in two bodies.

But maybe, if Hephaistion could make her understand, she would not bear so much animosity towards him.

He took a small step towards her. "I am sorry. And you are right." The Queen raised her chin a little.

"But you must know," he continued softly, "I don't do it to hurt you. I don't do it to undermine you. I love him. He loves me. I cannot change it, and even if I could I would not; not for you, not for the gods. So you can hate me, and curse me, but it will change nothing."

Her stony features softened only minutely.

"You would condemn me to be a married woman with no real husband?" Her voice was softer, or perhaps weaker.

"You would condemn me, or more importantly _him_ to a life without love or happiness?" The general countered gently.

He watched her face, cold and hard as marble, crumble and break. His words had shattered her mask of rock, softened her callous heart. Her once fiery gaze was now extinguished, as she dropped her eyes to the floor.

Hephaistion turned to leave her with that thought, but he hadn't made it five steps when he heard, "I am sorry. And you are right."

She used his previous words, her voice as gentle as he had ever heard it.

"A blind man could see how much he loves you, how much you love him." She couldn't raise her eyes from the floor to meet his as she admitted what she has been denying perhaps since she had learned of the King's attachment to his general. "You look at each other the way a mother looks at her new born babe; the way a man beholds something so foreign, so wonderful, and so awe-inspiring. When you are in a room together, one cannot make the slightest move without the other reacting to it. Your eyes constantly flash to the other's face, as if to ensure that they will not disappear. I know that you do not have a relationship out of spite for me; it is because it is necessary for both of your existences. And I apologize for hating you, but you must try to understand, that it would be nice if my husband cared for me, or even just wanted me; to be more that just a burden he took on for political purposes. What point does my life have now?"

She finished and hung her head lower, her length of dark hair falling around her beautiful face, casting it into shadow. Her shoulders seemed to slump under the invisible weight resting on them. She had been struggling so long to continue to stand proud and upright, but now she surrendered to the sorrow that had been weighing her down.

Hephaistion almost pitied her, before he remembered that his pity was probably the last thing on earth that she would want. Yet, he still wanted to comfort her, ease her pain in some way. He couldn't help it. It was his way to help people.

"Oh, Phai," Alexander would have said with a slow shake of the head and a teasing smile, "always the humanitarian."  
"The king needs an heir." The general said, addressing her last question.

He hadn't put much thought into his words. Instead of taking up the time to think hard for something comforting to say, he spewed the first thing that came into his head, in order to break up the silence. Something about Roxana just unnerved him. Why, he did not know.

But he knew, before the words had left his mouth, that that was the wrong thing to say.

The Queen's head snapped up, and fire filled her gaze once more. The flames bore into his body and scorched him. It took all his backbone not to shrink away from this terrifying look. He opened his mouth to apologize, and explain himself further, but first Roxana burned him with her words. Each one doused in flame.

"How nice, how very nice to be a breeding receptacle for the King! If only every woman in the world could know the joys of simply being means to produce an heir!" Her words were flames licking at his skin. "But lately I do not even get the pleasure of being that, seeing as you are the one leaving my husband's bedroom this morning, and not I! And on those rare occasions when I am not left waiting half the night for him to make his appearance, he is there only long enough to ensure my chances of giving him an heir, before slipping away to your bed, General. Is it so much to want a loving touch, to crave some sign that he cares somewhat for me? Is that too much to ask for in life?"

When she finished she was standing all of 3 inches away from Hephaistion. Her pure anger and sorrow had propelled her forward. Being that close to her when she was in such an angry state was like standing in an inferno.

She switched lines of thought so quickly that Hephaistion could hardly keep up. She had been so furious but now she was on the verge of tears. She went from burning him at the stake to breaking down before his very eyes, too fast for Hephaistion to take in. And yet the general felt that she danced around something that was on her mind but she refused to reveal to him. She skittered around it but never fully said it.

This is why that even in some horrible, cursed universe where Alexander and himself had never met, he was sure he could not spend his life with a woman. He found them to be far too fickle and inconsistent. The way they said one thing and were thinking the opposite. How could a man expect to ever truly know a woman when she kept so much to herself? They jumped from one extreme to the next before anyone knew what was going on.

It all seemed a game, and women held all the pieces. Men were expected to constantly play catch up without the prospect of ever winning. It was a complicated dance and Hephaistion had no desire to learn it.

With Alexander it was simple. Alexander said what he felt, Hephaistion said what he felt, and both ends were discussed. It is not to say that it is easy, being vulnerable and laying yourself out before someone like that; but it worked, and those frightening moments of insecurity pay off in the end, when both fully understand each other.

Hephaistion will admit that there are things that he shelter's Alexander from and the same most likely goes for Alexander. But neither ever dangles them above the other, dropping hints, as if to say, _"Guess what you have done wrong."_

Women were nice enough recreationally, but he could never see himself connecting with one the way he and Alexander have connected. He did not wish to connect with a woman, or anyone, the way he had with his Xander.

The Queen collapsed back against the wall and let her body slid slowly down it until she rested on the floor. Her skirts flowed out around her, creating a pool at her feet. Her eyes gazed across the corridor to a blank wall. She seemed to stare intently at something that was not there. Her fire had burned itself out.  
It broke his heart to see someone as strong as Roxana so broken.

After a few awkward moments he sat down slowly on the cool floor next to her. She did not acknowledge him. He pick at a jagged edge of his thumbnail, occupying his hands. He thought carefully before opening his mouth this time.

"I do believe that Alexander genuinely cares for you, in his own way."

Roxana glanced sideways at him. The fire was gone from her eyes, but they were not yet dead. Hephaistion could see a small glowing ember lying inside them.

"His own way?" she said the words as if they tasted bitter in her mouth, "What does that mean?"

Hephaistion thought, trying to find a way to explain his love's heart to this woman who did not know it.

"You have to understand him," he began carefully, "and I assure you that I do. I have known him my whole life, loved him my whole life."

"So I had to have been able to know him my whole life before he can care about me at all!" She interrupted.

There she goes, jumping from line of thought, to another completely remote one. Hephaistion told himself to have patience.

Slowly, he shook his head, "That is not what I am saying. Alexander is capable of caring for so much at once. As a king he has to be. He must care for his country, his people, the men of his army, his family. His heart can stretch between so many things. Unlike us," Roxana's eyes focused on him intently, her head lifted as Hephaistion grouped the two of them together, "who plant our hearts so firmly in one place. I promise you, that you are not nothing to him. He does care for you."

"But he _loves_ you." She raised her head fully and looked him dead in the eyes, "And I can not pretend that I am not jealous of that."

Hephaistion wanted to look down at the ground, hide from her gaze, but he was frozen under her eyes.

He watched a small smile pulled at the corners of her full mouth.

"It's funny," she said, " at one time I had convinced myself that if I gave him a son, that would make him love me." Her smile broadened. "But that was before I had seen the two of you together for any length of time. Then I realized how silly, foolish, the idea truly was."

She reached out and placed her small, soft, dark hand on his large, battle scarred arm.

"You make him happy, General. And it is better that you are happy together, than miserable and separated for my sake. I feel that in time, I will be able to understand."

The Queen rose from her place on the floor, and the General followed in suit.

Then she turned to face the man who possessed more of her husband's heart than she did, than anything on the earth did. Roxana stretched up onto her toes, and pressed her lips to his cheek.

Hephaistion was completely shocked by this. Her hot lips burned his skin.

"Make him happy." She whispered gently in his ear. "Always."

She pulled away, tears in her dark eyes. But despite the moisture, Hephaistion could see a small fire still burning in each of them.

And then she turned quickly away, and moved down the hallway, quick as a flame.

.-.-.-.-..-.

A few nights later, Hephaistion was tenderly moving his thumb in slow circles over his beloved's cheek. His warm hand was gently cradling his Xander's head, as they lay, staring into each other's eyes.

Just as Alexander succumbed to Hypnos, his eyelids drooping, hiding his warm gaze, Hephaistion said softly, "Are you happy, Xander?"

Alexander grinned, "Completely and totally blissful."

"And I make you happy?"

A broader smile shone from the King's face, "You and only you, my Phai."

The King moved closer, wrapping his arms around Hephaistion's middle, resting his head on his love's strong shoulder.

Hephaistion slid his arms around his beloved and held him close.

"I will keep it that way. Always." He promised.

* * *

**A little more serious than my other stories. But I hope you enjoyed it! Let me know what you think! **

**xoxo crazymac**


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